COST OF EDUCATION.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LV, Issue 210, 3 August 1935, Page 2

COST OF EDUCATION.

DOMINION’S EXPENDITURE. BLENHEIM, Aug. 2. “There is a widespread impression that during the last 20 years or so public expenditure on education has been bounding ahead out of all proportion to expenditure or. other depart ments of State activity. In point of cold fact, the figures tell a very ddferent story,” said Mr G. R. Ashbridge, secretary of the New Zealand Educa tional Institute, in an address to the Marlborough branch of the institute here to-night. “From 1913 to 1933, tlie total ex penditure of the Government from the Consolidated Fund rose from a little over 11 million pounds to 241 liulhon pounds—an increase of 120 per -cent., Mr Ashbridge continued. “During the same period educational expenditure increased from £1,421,000 (1914 figure) to £2,090,000 (1935) -an increase of only 82 per cent. 3 o put tlie same point in another way, only 8.7 per cent, of tlie increase in Government expenditure from 1913 to 1935 was due to increased expenditure on education. “More than this, the Government devotes a smaller proportion of its total expenditure to education to-day than it did 20 years ago. Tn 1913, 12.8 per cent, of total Government expenditure was devoted to education; in 1935 only 10.07 per cent. These figures provide a complete answer to extravagant talk of tlie mounting burden of educational expenditure and the suggestion tiiat the education services have been treated with open-handed generosity,” Mr Ashbridge concluded.